Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  “Hey baby! You finally came around!”, said both woman in unison. The strange girls pranced around and giggled at I stood there taking a half-ass shower. They snagged my soaked clothes off the floor and the only thing I heard as they left was yelling and screaming, “Wwwwooooooooooooooo.” (followed by a long giggle). At this point I did not give a shit, I wanted to take this long deserved shower and go home. The girls wandered in and out of the bathroom while I showered, shouting unknown words that made absolutely no sense at all. These chicks were either on drugs or crazy.

  I came out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel on. I must have looked like a helpless wet dog without a home, tail tucked between my legs, and so lost. I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. The daughter was standing right outside the bathroom waited for me to get out. According to the daughter, the mother had taken my clothes down the street to the laundry. The daughter was without a doubt, completely out of her mind, but

  beautiful. She was babbling on and on about only God knows what. I remember thinking that I had thought that the daughter was a little nutty, but I don’t remember the daughter looking this good. Here I was with just a towel on, and crazy girl standing right in front of me that seemed willing and ready to to whatever I wanted. Everything seemed great now! Especially since the daughter began to dance around and do a strip tease right then and there. Hey, this is not so bad! In fact this is great. I forgot about all of my worries, headache and body aches and the nasty hangover.

  The strip tease was on. The first thing that she pulled off was her shirt, but the bra stayed on. She pranced around like a smitten kitten for about a minute, smiling and flirting. The next item of clothing removed was her skin tight spandex pants.... oooh shit! What the fuck is that smell? No really!!! FUCK!!! I caught a whiff of what smelled like a dumpster loaded with warm, 5 day old seafood, mixed in with a dead skunk. I have no idea how I did not barf right then and there! I covered my nose and began to gag. She asked me what was so funny (I was not laughing) and I yelled, “Are you kidding? Don’t you smell that foul stank?” I think at that moment she realized it was her. She blushed, looked down, and seemed embarrassed. I felt bad but, shit! Whatever was happening in her pants was really bad. I think her crouch was rotting into a gooey glob as we stood there and stared at each other. I did not know what else to say. I got up, walked out to the back patio and sat on an old broken lounge chair. She followed me over to the door and watched as I sat down. There was an awkward silence for a good two or three minutes. She stood in the doorway of the trailer and said, “Are you coming back in so we can have some fun? My mom will be home soon.” I did not answer her. I sat on the back porch until her mother arrived. I thought this is the craziest girl I have ever been around and she smells worse than anything I had ever caught a whiff of in my entire life. I just wanted to get back to my band and go home. I had enough “fun” for this week.

  The crazy mom came back with my clothes from the laundry. She was

  teasing me with the clothes the second she arrived. She was dangling them around me saying, “What are you going to do for me?” This lady must have seen that I did not feel good and I was not in any mood to be screwed with. I was not smiling or joking around. I barked out a sentence that went something like, “Quit fucking with me. Take me home now!” She tossed the clothes back to me and I abruptly pulled them toward my chest. The clothes were still damp, but at this point I did not care. I told the lady thanks for everything and explained that I really needed to get to the band before they left me here in Fresno. After a long bit of pleading back and forth, she decided to get me back to the RV that was parked at the club, so I could return to Los Angeles.

  It was already over 100 degrees outside and approaching noon. I got to the passenger side of the crazy woman’s car, opened the door and was immediately assaulted with the horrible smell of barf. It was bad. I looked in and around the car and could see that the lady made a half-ass attempt to clean up the puke that I left behind just hours before. The large chunks were wiped up, but you could readily see smeared puke all over the cars interior. It was covered with a dried film of vomit, mixed with some type of unknown animal hair, that had dried in the hot morning sun. Vomit smell does not easily go away, especially when it is baking in the hot sun. I asked her if she had another vehicle and she said, “Do you want a ride or not?” I debated for a few minutes, but knew that I needed to have this lady drive me home in this “puke ride from hell.” This was in the days well before the luxury of having a cell phone and calling your buddies to come and get you. I was stuck with riding in the “junk food wrapper, barf loaded, soiled seat cushions, rotten animal hair, crazy driver, crazy, foul smelling daughter, ride from hell.”

  I gracefully accepted the offer. I sat in the back seat with the crazy, stinky daughter and fought her off of me the entire drive. She was pawing me and attempting to stick her thick, swollen, rotten-egg tongue in my ear. She licked the side of my face with the beastly moose tongue, and left a two inch slime trail on my cheek. The breath of the crazy daughter competed with the smell that was wafting in her pants. I could only describe her breath as; sweaty, fat guy decaying fish farts.

  We made it to the RV and the band was pacing around outside obviously pissed off. Here it was, 12:30 in the afternoon and I was rolling in with two women. They were not pleased at this sight and let me know the second I stepped out of the “barf car.” The crazy ladies were attempting one last hug and face lick, but I escaped into the RV where the band followed and verbally scolded me for disregarding our band rules concerning overnight stays. I knew I screwed up. The entire time I received a verbal berating, I was never so happy to see the guys. The band chased me into the RV like a teenager that was in serious trouble with his parents. I would listen to the bitching for another hour as we took off back to Los Angeles. I think they could see that I felt like shit, smelled like shit and, oh wait! It smells like shit inside here! Why does everything stink this weekend? I had not noticed the horrible smell brewing and bubbling away in the bathroom of the RV because I was so hung over, I was very distracted. I asked the guys why the RV smelled like a New York sewer and they said, “Cuppie, its a long story, but this time we know we can’t blame you! You were not here all night.” Good thing I wasn’t because I would’ve got blamed for sure! Anyway. we laughed and began to joke around again. Good... they are no longer mad. Another hour passed and I asked, “No really why does the RV smell like shit?” They all laughed and kept driving. The entire 6 hour drive back to Los Angeles, it smelled like a sewer hole and I never found out why. My thought; an obvious problem with the toilet in the RV’s bathroom. What a genius I am to figure that one out all by myself!

  Here come the 90’s

  THE ST. JAMES - Vinnie Veags

  For some reason, Matt kept getting up on the roof of our apartments and this annoyed our manager to no end. It’s not like he was up to anything, he just wandered up there like a cat. The manager would yell at him to stay off the roof and the next night he’d be up there again. Finally, the guy got fed up and evicted us from the apartments. We ended up getting a fairly posh 2 bedroom apartment on the corner of Hollywood & Fuller called the St. James. This place was ultra modern and everybody knew of the St. James because it was the place to be. The grounds were huge. It had 5 buildings with 3 pools and a BBQ deck on the roof. It looked like a hotel with inside hallways and there must’ve been 600 units in the place so there were tons of neighbors to hang out with. Most people living there were young kids so it was kind of like being in High School all over again. This place had plush white carpet, a modern kitchen and even a gas fireplace in the living room. We had white micro-Christmas lights blinking around the ceiling like a circus marquee, and a large mirror with the red and blue Hooligan Stew logo

  emblazoned on it over the fireplace. It was right up the street from Rock N Roll Ralphs which made our forays for beer a lot more convenient. This place had A/C and modern elevators with underground parking. One loved feature
was a “food carousel” downstairs which was like a soda machine with food. Not a candy or chips machine mind you, but one with salads, cheese-steak sandwiches and pasta. This was never a frugal idea if you were sober, but once you hit the sauce... look out! With this place, our parties grew by leaps and bounds even though it was smaller than the old place.There was a mother/daughter team who showed up around this time and the mother had a huge thing for Matt. She had a name, but Matt called her “Tex” because she had a Texan accent. This woman looked like a whisky shooting truck driver and spoke like Yosemite Sam. Matt would have nothing to do with Tex which didn’t surprise anyone. Tex was a middle-aged squat woman with man hands and a loud mouth, but Tex was persistent and always came over with beer and steaks so we put up with her. She bought us the large mirror with our logo printed on it which we hung right over the fireplace. Now that was cool! I don’t think anybody else had a piece like that. To see our place in the St. James, you’d have thought we’d already signed a record deal. That place turned out to be the best time we ever had.

  Later we decided to kick it up another notch and I designed bonified stage outfits for the band. I tried to capture the different personalities of the band members in my designs. That was something we never had before and really set us above most of the bands. These were made by a lady in La Canada-Flintridge that had made costumes for Broadway plays. They were very flashy with a lot of sequins and studs. Designing the outfits was actually a lot of fun. I gave my outfit a very Vegas theme. (duh!) It was red and white faux leather with a kind of riverboat gambler feel. I had a red vest with black velvet lapels festooned with countless sparkling sequins. The pants were red chaps with cowboy fringe and card suits designed out of metal studs. I topped it all off with a red top-hat featuring the Ace O’ Hearts stuffed into the headband. Now I truly was Vinnie Vegas! Bobby wanted to convey a more “Brooklyn” kind of feel to his outfit so I designed an Andrew Dice Clay style jacket with the collar turned up and gave him a biker hat like the one I used to wear. Actually Bobby didn’t veer too far off the original street punk motif after all. Matt wanted an outfit that was inspired by Evil Kneivel. Perris in his typical style, opted for a baseball shirt so he could look like his rapper heroes. The best thing about these outfits is that you only wore them onstage. Whether you’re a cop or a football player, there’s a real change that comes over you once you suit up. I always thought that it must be cool to be in Kiss because once you look around and see everybody in their regalia, you know it’s on! At that moment, you are truly Kiss and then you hit the stage. Our outfits had the same effect and it kicked our stage show up a few notches. We also added some cool club-style stage lights in addition to our 10 x 6 banner behind Perris. On stage, you really couldn’t tell the difference, but on video, the change was dramatic. A few weeks later we made the cover of Rock City News in our new digs.

  Apryl Wine - Vinnie Vegas

  I used to talk to a girl on the phone in Indiana on a regular basis. I called her Apryl Wine, but that was not her real name. Very close, however. One of her friends had been out to Hollywood one summer and met my band on the strip. Usually, if you met someone who came out to the strip from very far away, you would comp them a couple of tickets to your show as a treat. This girl went back home to Indiana with a bunch of our flyers, a cassette tape, and a few copies of Rock City News. Apryl Wine was a huge glam-rock fan and was dared by her friends to call us one night. I think she ended up talking to Perris at first who handed the phone off to somebody else. Nobody seemed interested in talking to somebody they couldn’t actually touch, but I was intrigued by the idea of living in the midwest. I had never been out there and wanted to hear all about it. We talked for 2 hours that night and since Indiana is three hours ahead, it must have been 5 am by the time she got off.

  Since I had a fascination with the midwest, I wanted to travel there vicariously through Apryl. Cupkake had already been there and told me all sorts of tales about the farmland. Apryl told me all about all the things I had never seen, like fireflies, wooly-worms, and tornadoes. And I told her about Hollywood, movie stars and earthquakes. After that night, we talked just about every Saturday night and I’d take to phone into our closet so I could chat in peace. I really loved talking to her and we would go off for hours just chatting back and forth about anything and everything. She was a girl that I could talk to as if I knew her for years and we became very close friends even though we never actually met! Of course, the guys in the band thought I was nuts, but everytime the phone rang late on Saturday nights, I’d run to the phone and talk to Apryl for hours.

  About five years later, we actually did meet up and spent a long weekend together. She was in Las Vegas, so I drove out there and brought her back to Hollywood. Apryl had always talked about coming out to Hollywood, and so we made it be. As weird as it sounds, when I got my own apartment again, it was the same exact apartment that I lived in before; 1800 El Cerrito #18. To finally be together and alone after all that time was magical, and we enjoyed a very adult time together. Driving home from Vegas, I remember looking over at her every few minutes and feeling like I was in a dream. I felt like I really needed to make this weekend very special for Apryl. We drove down to the Del Mar Fair one day and watched fireworks for the Fourth of July. On the way down, Apryl saw the Pacific Ocean for the very first time and we stopped at a vista above a cliff to check it out. I will never forget the look on her face as she marveled and soaked it in. The wind blew back her hair and when she looked up at me, I leaned in and kissed her. It was a perfect moment that comes once in a lifetime. Back in Hollywood, we cruised Melrose and ate at a couple of nice Hollywood restaurants. At my apartment, we acted as if we had been together for years. In a way, we actually had. I felt comfortable with her and to have her cuddled up with me at night on my air mattress was perfect. Our last night in Hollywood, I stayed up for hours and watched her sleep so I would never forget what that was like. I drove her back to Las Vegas and we had one last night together at the Imperial Palace. On the way back to Vegas, my car was on the verge of overheating, and I had to crank on the heater in the middle of the desert to cool off the engine. We were both sweating like we were in a sauna, but Apryl’s smile never faded and we laughed about that for months. Now that I think about that, it was fifteen years ago now, but I can still remember that weekend as if it was yesterday. I remember the way her eyes twinkle when she smiles and I remember the smell of her hair. It was the perfect weekend and I will remember it forever. That experience goes down as one of my favorite times to be alive.

  MY BROTHERS KEEPER - Vinnie Vegas

  Cupkake and I had a mutual help policy in which I always went to Spiders & Snakes’ gigs, and helped them set up stage gear as a roadie. This used to infuriate Matt because he felt that a roadie was not on par with the rock elite, and people seeing Vinnie Vegas setting up amps was beneath us. Of course I thought this was total nonsense, and did it anyway. The fact is that it’s great to have someone knowledgeable help you set up and look for all the little things that pop up such as the stand-by switch fiasco. This person is not playing and therefore is thinking clearly without the haze of the pre-show ruckus. And also, the less you have to worry about, the more you can focus on being in “The Zone” of performing. To me, that was the most important thing you could do for the people who paid to get in. Not only that, but I thought it was fun and the guys always appreciated it. We even had our own sub-routine during shows that we called our own.

  You see, in those days every band had the obligatory slow song right before the last number on the song list. The power-ballad is what it became known as and every, I mean EVERY band played one. If Cupkake was playing, then right before the number I’d squeeze up to the front of the stage on his side of the stage and hold up a pack of smokes. He would take one and lean over while I lit the cigarette which he would smoke dramatically during the song. And If I was playing, he’d do the same thing in return. This went over uneasily with some guys because in Hollywood it
was almost unheard of for two guys in separate bands to be friends. Indeed I would get a lot of lectures from my bandmates about this strange behavior which I passed off as idiocy. For better or worse, this insubordinate attitude became my hallmark. As for the smokes, it brings back a funny episode I had back in San Diego which included Guns N Roses.

  When I first met Cupkake back in San Diego, it didn’t take long for us to decide that we wanted to move to LA. Once that was settled, I broke the news to my girlfriend Barb which of course went over like a lead balloon. This led to strange dynamic between the two because she liked Cupkake, but at the same time, he was stealing me away from her. So she didn’t like the idea of his motives. To make things worse, Barb always knew when Cupkake was on the phone because of all the jocularity and guffawing on my part. She saw that I was way more into being around him than her, and to her credit, she was right.

  That November, Guns N Roses was playing a gig at San Diego State in a hall that looked more like a cafeteria than a rock venue. The buzz was that this was going to be the very last time you would ever see them in that small of a venue, and looking back that is exactly what happened. The cool part was that Guns N Roses hadn’t yet exploded into rock stardom, so the only people there were true fans that were on to them early. This led to a concert where you felt really exclusive to be there.